they say you know a way out of here
by jadebloods
Summary: "A fight may still find us all the same. We're being followed." "That's easy," Mason said, still leaning casually against the wall. He wasn't nearly as alarmed as seemed warranted by an imminent beating, but at least he was consistent in his nonchalance. "Just kiss me."


A/N: This fic makes liberal use of plot contrivances to get two dudes to touch each other. It also involves consent given under duress, at least at first.

* * *

_Bridewell Prison, New York, 1776_

Connor dragged his hand over the stubble on his cheek, irritating his 48-hour shadow, which had begun to itch incessantly since the guards wouldn't allow him use of any instruments to shave or pluck it. They wouldn't even give him anything to piss in aside from a leaky wooden bucket, so personal hygiene clearly wasn't high on the institution's list of priorities.

He rubbed his hand the other way, swiping his fingers across his lips with trepidation as be paced back and forth in front of the small bullpen table. "I'll give you credit. You've given this plan to risk my life a great deal of thought."

Mason barely looked up from his pen and paper, which somehow prickled Connor's skin more than the stubble. The least the guy could do was look Connor in the eye as he set off on a dangerous mission to break them both out of prison, right? There was a solemnity to the undertaking of a mission that should be observed. An agreement. A handshake. He wanted some sort of acknowledgment, but all he got was a blithe, "We all have our part to play," as Mason continued writing. After a moment Mason did look up, meeting Connor's gaze with his own slightly beady eyes. They were set close and deep like... well, like the small carnivore he was nicknamed after, Weasel Weems, like some diminutive but ferocious thing too intelligent to stay in one place for very long. "Try not to die."

Connor held in a growl, understanding that he wasn't going to get the satisfaction he wanted from this man. He wasn't even sure what particular desire needed satisfying, but it itched somewhere near his spine between his shoulder blades and made his fingers curl into his palms with unresolved anticipatory tension.

A 'thank you' would have been nice, at the very least.

He decided to give in to the impotent restlessness and use it to fuel the fight he was about to pick with the half a dozen tough guys in the far corner, letting it shake down to his legs and make his stance widen, preemptively stabilizing his core. He knew he could easily take at least twice as many men, even without his weapons-and he might have to-but he didn't want to get cocky. Without his usual outfit to shield him, this was going to hurt a lot. He wasn't going to enjoy this at all.

The plan was to cold-cock the man facing directly away from him, knocking him out before the fight even started. That would increase his odds of winning and piss off the guy's buddies, hopefully leaving them stunned for a minute while they processed what was happening. He might even be able to get two of them down before the brawl really got started, if he timed it right. The guy on his target's left seemed like the best secondary target, so Connor approached the group from slightly to the right, planting his back heel in the dirt floor and pulling his shoulder and elbow back-

But before he could throw the punch, someone grabbed his arm and cut all of his forward momentum. His defensive instinct kicked in immediately, prompting Connor to pull the punch and spin around, grabbing the interloper's forearm and pushing him against the wall. Connor trapped his wrist against the rough brick, scraping both of their knuckles bloody before he even realized who had stopped him.

Mason stared back at him from a few inches away, a large dose of incredulity and an almost imperceptible trickle of fear trailing across his face. "What the hell are you doing?" he hissed, finally showing a sliver of concern.

Connor blanched at him, feeling more than a little bit incredulous himself. This guy really was something else. "Going through with the plan," he said slowly, his barely contained frustration leaking out through the roundness of his careful vowels. He didn't let go of Mason's wrist, and the goons to their left were starting to notice that something was going down. He'd completely lost his element of surprise.

"I didn't say to do it _right now_." To his credit, Mason didn't shrink away or break eye contact, even though Connor easily had twice the bulk on him. Maybe he knew Connor didn't really wish him any harm, or maybe this was another one of his calculated gambles.

"That information would have served me better _before_ ending our conversation," Connor said through grit teeth, trying to juggle their whispering with his awareness of what was happening with the group of men he almost attacked, who had begun turning toward them and grumbling vague threats about personal space and how the two of them were way out of bounds. "We should discuss this elsewhere," he added, letting his hand relax and let go of Mason's wrist. His knuckles were red and angry, with blood welling in the cracks, but they would heal. He stepped away from the wall and rotated his wrist, rubbing the dirt away from his scrapes.

"I know a place we can go to... talk," Mason said a bit too loudly for it to not be on purpose, grabbing Connor's hand and leading him around the corner, to a small alcove behind the stairs that was shielded from most of the bullpen.

Connor positioned himself in the corner, leaning his shoulders against the wall and facing the alcove entrance to get a clear view of everyone who could see them, but most of the inmates weren't paying attention to anything but their own games and conversations. "What was that all about?" he asked, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"The warden doesn't come in on Sundays," Mason said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "If you want to catch him, you're better off starting a riot tomorrow."

"Why not just do it now and wait in the pit? I see no difference."

Mason rolled his eyes. "If you'd ever been in the pit before, you'd see the difference. At least here they give you a bucket." He grimaced and crossed his arms too, mimicking Connor's stance by leaning one shoulder sideways into the wall. "The warden does searches in the morning. Fat lot of good that key will do us if it gets confiscated. Like you said, I've put a lot of thought into this."

"Fine. I will wait until tomorrow, but it cannot wait any longer than that." Connor looked down at the ground, steeling himself for one more night of sleeping on an uncomfortable straw mattress with piss seeping into the dirt at his feet. He huffed a sigh and shook his head, scuffing his toes on the ground and wondering what special combination of circumstances had gotten him into a mess like this, where he was legitimately stuck for once and completely dependent on a man like Mason, who had probably never been through a proper fight in his life.

When he looked back up, he saw one of the tough guys approaching their corner from over Mason's shoulder. It was the big one, with a nose like an overripe tomato an an attitude that said the only thing he liked less than being looked at was being ignored. "A fight may still find us all the same. We're being followed."

"That's easy," Mason said, still leaning casually against the wall. He wasn't nearly as alarmed as seemed warranted by an imminent beating, but at least he was consistent in his nonchalance. "Just kiss me."

Connor was startled by the command, afraid that he had misheard but also afraid that he had heard correctly. He gave his head a tiny shake, as if trying to clear it of the mental debris warping Mason's words into a poorly timed proposition. "_What?_" he spat.

"Grab me and kiss me," he said more slowly. "It'll confuse them." Connor only blinked at him, which made Mason lean forward and shift his feet, looking a little more nervous about the oncoming threat. Under different circumstances, it may have felt satisfying to get him to actually express a degree of worry about anything. "Just trust me and do it now, before they get too close. Be sure to look desperate."

There was no time to debate the course of action, because the one man had been joined by two more, and they were getting very close indeed. Connor knew very little about sexual passion, but he understood visceral desire-albeit Connor's desires usually had more to do with his blades than his erogenous zones. He snarled at Mason and grabbed the front of his shirt, pulling him forward with a jerk and opening his mouth as if to devour his beating heart.

The kiss, if it could even be called that, started off as a confused mashing of faces. The inexact messiness of it worked in their favor, because from the outside it probably did look like the last resort of a desperate man, too hard up to care about being considerate to his partner. Connor's mouth was way too wide, engulfing the lower half of Mason's face until Mason pulled back a little and opened his mouth to compensate, pressing Connor's lips hard against his own teeth. It was painful, especially against the already inflamed cuts on his upper lip and cheek, and it wasn't even slightly arousing, but the surging intensity of it still felt ambiguously cathartic to him. He grabbed Mason's waist and squeezed his eyes shut, committing to the performance as if it was just another stealth maneuver that he had to learn and perfect. Like most stealth situations, it was more appearance than substance.

"Pin me to the wall," Mason huffed into the kiss, moving his lips against Connor's mouth. Talking with their lips flushed together felt nicer than the face-sucking; it was kind of ticklish, with the small puffs of breath against his face and the softer motion of lips sliding softly past each other instead of being forcefully pushed together. A thought bubbled to the top of his mind, one that implied he might actually enjoy kissing Mason this way just for the sake of it, but he quickly shoved this back down and got to work analyzing the situation at hand.

Connor cracked his eyes open just enough to get a hazy impression of where the other men were standing. They had stopped approaching but didn't seem to be leaving either, as if they hadn't yet decided if they wanted to fuck shit up enough to intervene in someone else's desperate prison hookup. Trusting Mason's instincts, Connor grabbed his shoulders and backed him into the brick staircase wall, tilting his head down to bury his face in Mason's throat at a strategic angle, which allowed him to glance at the other men from the corner of his eye.

Mason winked at him so that the others couldn't see and then closed his eyes, moaning just loud enough to be heard by them but not the rest of the bullpen or the guards. Their main attacker, the tomato-nosed bully, made a face so viscerally disgusted that Connor was concerned he might actually be sick on the floor. "Weems, you filthy buggerer. I knew you was a cock robin an' a cheat at fanorona, but I di'n't know you fancied backgammon as well."

Connor rested his forearms on the wall on either side of Mason's head, bracing his weight against them as he pulled his face up from Mason's neck. He glanced directly over at the crew, making eye contact with the leader. "Is it your intention to watch, or are you trying to cut in?"

There was a tense moment while the two of them stared each other down, deciding whether a fight was imminent. Connor did his best to project himself as a man who would rather get his rocks off than fight, but who would step up to a fight if need be, and the other guy did a pretty good job of looking like someone who still had his feathers ruffled but maybe didn't want to be involved in anything queer that was happening back here in this dirty corner.

"As if I want any part a' you navigatin' his windward tunnel," the guy said with a dismissive hand wave, stepping back. "This ain't over," he added, pointing at Connor before turning around.

"I expect that it is not," Connor grumbled quietly, knowing something about tomorrow that the other man didn't.

One of his lackeys followed suit as they left Connor and Mason behind, but the other stood his ground, staring rudely at Mason. He was a tall and lanky fellow, with a mean face-not mean like he wanted to fight, but mean like he enjoyed seeing other men squirm. He didn't make to move toward them, but instead he leaned against the wall on the opposite side of the bullpen and watched them closely.

Connor switched to Mason's other side, bending down as if to kiss him by the ear. "It seems that this one does mean to watch," he said next to Mason's temple, keeping an eye on the man over the top of Mason's head in case he made any sudden movements. "What would you propose we do?"

"He does seem to have an interest." He turned his face toward Connor's neck, pressing his temple against Connor's cheek. They were still standing very close to maintain the illusion of intimacy, so that their chests touched through the soiled fabric of their shirts with every inhale. Mason smelled like ripe man and prison rations, but then again, they all did. Connor didn't want to think about what smells Mason was being exposed to at the moment, considering that Mason's face was sneezing distance from his armpit. "He also has us stuck between a rock and a hard place. Any way you could take him out without starting a fight? I've put too much into this to jeopardize it by getting ourselves noticed now."

Before Connor could answer, Mason pushed forward and began kissing his throat, biting at a spot under Connor's jaw. This was presumably for the skinny shit-stirrer's benefit, but Connor's eyes flitted shut at the sudden warm, wet sensation all the same. It was foolish for Connor to take his eyes off of the target, but he was so inexperienced at this that it was hard to not react to it a little.

No. This is wrong. This is a _job_, Connor. Do your job.

He forced his eyes open with a groan and once again surveyed the scenario. The facts were as follows: One jailbird was hellbent on watching them finish their charade. A dozen of his buddies were in the line of sight if Connor approached him directly. There was a staircase on the opposite wall that Connor could drop from, but a guard was watching the top of it. He was standing with his back against a wall, so there was no option to sneak up behind him.

"No," he mumbled with resigned frustration. Every available option was too conspicuous. His instincts said to wait it out and see if he got bored or distracted long enough for them to slip away.

"Then the only way out is through," Mason said through a deep exhale. He put his hands on Connor's hips, testing the waters like he was trying to calm a spooked buck. "I don't mind going on. Do you?"

"_Mind?_ Of course I mind." Connor clenched his jaw and swallowed, trying not to flinch away from Mason's touch. This wasn't his fault after all, it was just what the mission called for. "I... will do what needs to be done, but this is not-"

"It's not ideal. I know." Mason slid his hand forward, to the front of Connor's pants, and then down between his legs. A sick flash of some strong feeling-excitement, terror, trepidation, disgust, arousal, all and none of the above-ran up Connor's spine when Mason's hand cupped him gently through his pants. "Believe me, my virtue is properly bruised, but I'd do much worse than slob on your end to get out of this place. I'm probably getting off easy. You seem like the noble type of man who will still write to me after."

The entire conversation was surreal, highlighting the new heights that Connor would be willing to go to-or perhaps they could be more accurately described as new lows he would deign to sink to-in order to salvage a mission. As Mason came forward for another kiss, Connor hoped that saving Commander Washington's life would be worth the blow to his own virtue.

He thought of Kanen'tó:kon for one very miserable moment, of kissing him in a similar fashion against the door of his bedroom in Davenport manor, but he shoved the memory aside almost as quickly as it arose. This type of thing was exactly why he insisted that there was no future for them, no matter how painful it was, because he never knew what a mission would require of him. His time was not his own. His body wasn't even his own, so he had nothing of himself to give to another, and no time to spare for a partner. This had become a mantra he repeated to himself during small, lonely moments whenever he questioned his resolve, and he needed it now.

Even still, he knew betrayal when he felt it. It lodged in his throat and made him gasp against Mason's lips as he felt his body responding favorably to the way Mason's hand was fondling it. "Weems, I-"

"I'm about to touch your cock, so call me Mason." He pulled back a bit and looked Connor in the eyes, calm enough for the both of them. It was clear that he had a better constitution for this type of stealth mission than Connor did. They were both survivors in their own ways, and Connor felt a blossom of respect for the man, as inscrutable as he was and as ridiculous as the circumstances were. Maybe there was a use for him in the brotherhood, if not now, then someday. "If you say stop, I'll stop. Just make sure you mean it."

From this close it was hard to see the way the sharp angles of his face made him look overly shrewd and calculating, and instead his small eyes looked soft and receptive. There was no doubt that Mason would stop if Connor asked, but Mason could also be counted on also see it through. Instead of saying anything, Connor pressed his lips together and nodded, and Mason kissed his mouth lightly before bringing his hand up and slowly licking his own palm.

Seeing Mason lick himself with quiet confidence while making deliberate eye contact flipped some kind of eroticism switch in Connor's brain, making him forget his discomfort for a brief moment as he anticipated the warm, slick hand that was about to feel him up, and legitimate arousal flooded his body. It was a rare, unexpected moment of genuine sexual desire, but it was rudely interrupted when their voyeur opened his mouth. "Would you ladies quit talking 'bout your feelings and get on with it? Go on, tell him how much you want him to squeeze your twiddle-diddles," he grumbled from several yards away, adjusting himself in his pants and glancing suspiciously at the crowd around the corner.

Connor gave the man a dead-eyed stare while Mason unlaced the front of Connor's pants and reached inside. He stifled a noise when Mason grasped him, letting his eyelids drop until the brawler was just a darker impression in a dark corner, an impressionist blur that had no bearing on Connor's state of mind or his erection.

"Wow, okay," Mason said, sounding a little impressed by Connor's visceral method acting. "I thought this might take a little more finesse, but okay." He was already mostly hard, but that had less to do with how arousing any of this was and more to do with how well Connor had trained himself for efficiency, switching on easily and finishing up quickly. "Is this good?" Mason asked, gripping him snugly and tugging his foreskin back and forth over the head.

Connor winced and held his mouth open but his jaw stiff, breathing steadily but audibly into his own shoulder, with his arms still braced against the wall next to Mason's head. He used his thick arms to shield their faces as best as he could, giving them a small concession to privacy while they carried out this deed. "Yes," he breathed, still keeping one eye on the third party over his bicep.

"What's our friend doing?" There was a determination in Mason's voice that could have been focused on cataloging Connor's response to his stroking just as easily as it could have been about keeping on top of the external situation.

Connor swallowed before he could speak, as his functions had already kicked over into a mechanical override from the stimulation. He was in the habit of depriving himself, so he was always a pretty quick study whenever he gave in and allowed his body to do its thing. "He looks underwhelmed. I believe..." He had to bite back another noise that rose in response to the sensitive sliding pressure on his erection. "...his attention will soon begin to waver. Let me worry about him."

"Right, of course. I did say that we all had our part to play, didn't I? Guess this is mine," he said, and Connor could hear the bemusement in his voice. He was glad his partner in this mission was so amenable and adaptable to such bizarre and personal circumstances.

His partner was fortunately also very skilled around another man's erection, holding Connor with just the right amount of firmness and stroking him at a pace that was fast enough to leave Connor panting into his arm as his excitement grew stronger, but not so fast that he would embarrass himself or become overstimulated. He picked up on Connor's needs quickly, squeezing the base with each downstroke and rubbing his thumb over the head with each upstroke. He only broke the deliriously steady tempo to reach down and tenderly squeeze Connor's balls, which prompted Connor to bite his sleeve to contain the noises he would otherwise be making. Mason leaned his back against the wall and tilted his head down, so that his forehead rested against Connor's jaw and he could look down Connor's waistband to see what he was doing.

There seemed to be an unspoken agreement that neither of them actually wanted Connor to come while in sight of the sadist watching them. But even with Mason reading all of his tells and backing off a bit to keep Connor from hitting any critical peaks, it was becoming evident that it would happen soon, one way or another. It had been almost two weeks since the last time he had touched himself in this way, so his body was completely divorced from the trepidation in his mind, and it ached for the release that he had been denying it.

Connor felt himself squeezing up on his toes, snarling into his sleeve with the effort of keeping his excitement below ejaculatory levels. He was sweating and trembling, and he could hear Mason's determined breaths hissing through his teeth next to Connor's ear. He had to wonder if Mason was aroused too, if this was affecting him at all. The thought that it might be only made it that much more difficult for Connor to contain himself.

Perhaps, then, it was a lucky break that a shout arose from the middle of the bullpen right as Connor was having this thought, pulling their voyeur's attention away as an unrelated fight broke out on the far side of the room. He ran off, apparently deciding that bashing some skulls was more entertaining than getting a partial view of a fist job.

Connor was so close to coming that it took him a moment to find the words. He spit out his shirt sleeve and buried his eyes in the crook of his elbow, whispering a harsh, "He's gone."

"Excellent. Do you want me to stop?" Mason sounded about as keyed up as Connor did, and he slowed his movements down even further but did not actually stop, continuing to rub his thumb along Connor's shaft while waiting for him to answer.

"What?" Connor panted, not quite able to wrap his brain around what Mason was asking. It took everything he had to keep himself in check, grimacing through the small grunts that he could no longer stop making every time Mason's fingers slid under the ridge of his head, making his cock throb in time with his pulse. His impending orgasm sat heavily between his legs, his balls aching for just a little bit _more_.

"I said I would stop when you asked." His hand was now barely putting any friction at all on Connor's erection, sliding just the pads of his fingers up and down the shaft to keep Connor balanced at the edge. "I don't mind. Circumstantial evidence tells me that you need this. So, do you want me to stop?" He let go of Connor just long enough to look him in the eye and lick his palm again, and his disappointment at losing the touch for that short moment was enough to tell Connor what he actually wanted.

Connor let his arms drop so that he could hold Mason's face, putting his palms under his jaw and his thumbs on Mason's cheeks. He closed his eyes and leaned forward to rest their foreheads together, shaking his head and letting out a staggered exhale. He didn't just need this. Right now, he wanted this. "No."

Mason didn't speak, he just wrapped hand back around Connor and resumed stroking, picking up the pace an incremental amount, just enough to make the promise of release drive Connor mad. He held his muscles tight and tilted his hips forward, pushing his erection between Mason's wet fingers until he felt a rushing coalescence tickling all the way from his groin to the soles of his feet, which told him it was happening now, there was no more putting it off and denying himself. His body was going to take what it had been promised.

The rushing sensation came to a peak, and Connor groaned against his closed lips as he came all over Mason's hand and the inside of his filthy pants. His core clenched and his limbs shuddered, releasing all of the tension that had settled into them during his stay in this miserable prison. For a brief moment, he didn't care about the mission, about saving Commander Washington or killing Thomas Hickey. He didn't even care that a malevolent stranger had very nearly seen him do such a vulnerably personal thing as this-not that Mason wasn't essentially a stranger as well, but perhaps it was different when the stranger was the one plucking your strings to make you shake and gasp in their hands. All Connor cared about was riding through the muted euphoria of these prolonged and pleasurable muscle contractions as he struggled to keep pace with his staggered breathing.

As satisfying as it all was, it bothered him a little that he was still beholden to this biological necessity, and he wished it was something he could put on a shelf until he had the time to enjoy it properly instead of rubbing it out furtively in a semi-private corner of a disgusting prison. Here and now was rarely the right time and place for Connor when it came to things like pleasure, and he would rather wait until the day that he would be able to savor it and devote his attention to it, but his body had other plans, demanding release regularly like a pressurized steam valve.

His life would be much more simple if he could just shut that whole part of himself down, but he knew that the drive for such things kept him human and tied him to the cycle of life itself, so he endured it.

When it was over, he began to sag from emotional and physical deflation. He let go of Mason's face to once again support himself against the wall, so that he didn't drop to his knees from the rush of exhaustion that followed. "Hey," Mason said, reaching up with his clean hand to smooth Connor's hair away from his sweaty face. "You okay? That looked intense."

Connor opened his eyes to see Mason looking up at him with concern. It was endearing and frustrating. Of course he was fine. "Yes. You were right, though. I needed that."

"I figured. You seem like the kind of fellow to have one of those misguided celibacy vows. Goes with the whole highfaultin' secret society thing." He pulled his hand out of Connor's pants and wiped them off on the front, smearing his own semen across his thigh. Somewhere above them, alarm bells started going off in response to the fight down below, which Connor had somehow forgotten about while in the heat of the moment. He grimaced at his momentary lack of awareness, berating himself for being so easily distracted. Soon, guards would begin swarming the bullpen and rounding up the brawlers, forcing everyone else back into their cells, and Connor needed to be alert so as not to rouse suspicion.

"We should probably get out of here," Mason added, ducking under Connor's arm.

Connor turned quickly and grabbed his shoulder, unsure of what he was going to say, but feeling like something needed to be said all the same. "Wait. Weems... Mason."

He smiled incredulously and shook his head, patting Connor on the arm. "It's not a big deal, desperate times call for desperate measures. I told you, there are much worse things I'd do to get out of here. We'll just say you owe me one."

"I think I owe you a large one indeed," Connor said, resting his hands on his knees to catch his breath and accidentally putting his hand in his own mess where Mason had wiped it there. He pulled a startled face and wiped his hand off on the seat of his pants, making Mason laugh quietly.

"Larger than you think," he said before disappearing into the throng of angry, jostling bodies.

Connor didn't have much time to collect his thoughts before guards flooded the scene, confusing everything in a loud, echoing cacophony of shouting, and pistol-whipping the more uproarious of the brawlers. Soon the chaos settled enough that Connor attracted the attention of a guard rounding up the stragglers, who shoved the butt of a rifle into his thigh, pushing him away from the wall and toward the stairs. He went easily, keeping his hands behind his back and his chin down until they made it all the way back to his cell, even letting them shove him inside so that he fell to the ground in front of his poor excuse for a mattress. In addition to being unusually relaxed, he also wanted to give them the illusion that he was little trouble and not worthy of notice.

There would be enough of that to go around tomorrow.


End file.
